The first takeoff of the Concorde took place in 1969, in Toulouse, France; and even before flying, the plane had already captured the hearts of many people, as the event was attended by more than a thousand attendees.
Concorde: a technological dream come true
And it is that the dazzling was not for less: in addition to its elegant design, the Concorde could boast that Thanks to its supersonic technology, it flew at 2,200 kilometers per hour; transporting up to 144 passengers in stages of 6,500 kilometers; reducing to half the time, the trips of the majority of the international air routes.
It is worth mentioning that this wonder was the result of collaboration between the British and French governments; who financed it for a decade. Later, between 1975 and 1976, the first aircraft were ready to fly and were delivered to British Airways and Air France to start commercial operations.
traveling in luxury
Although the airplane landed for the first time at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) in 1974, it would not be until 1978 that the first commercial flights to our country would be scheduled on the Paris-Washington-Mexico route; then it would change to Paris – New York – Mexico. In addition, the estimated time of the trip was only seven hours and 22 minutes.
Obviously, traveling on this aircraft was a luxury, since the ticket per person cost between 6,500 and 8,000 euros. Similarly, the Atlantic was crossed enjoying a menu that included champagne, caviar, foie gras, lobster or steak. Finally, the Paris-Washington route was completed in just three hours and 33 minutes.
Likewise, the plane arrived on Sundays and Wednesdays around 7:00 p.m. and took off on Mondays and Thursdays at 8:30 a.m. Those days were a holiday for motorists and pedestrians around the AICM, who enjoyed the sound of their engines, spectacularly announcing their arrival and departure.
Holiday Sundays to admire the Concorde
Those years of the eighties, many families moved to the barbed wire, walls and pedestrian bridges of the airport to wait, with binoculars in hand, for the arrival of the airplane.
Likewise, that ritual continued until his last flight in November 1982, when Air France decided that the route was not affordable in our country. It is known that hundreds of people gathered on the outskirts of the AICM on that memorable day and as the journalist Juan Rodríguez from the newspaper El Universal narrated:
Without any ceremony and in front of the eyes of hundreds of people who went to see him off, the supersonic Concorde rose into the air, never to return.
The end of the supersonic airplane
Commercial flights of the plane ceased forever in 2003, partly due to skyrocketing maintenance costs; partly due to the tragic accident in French territory in 2000, when one of the planes crashed minutes after taking off, causing the death of more than 100 people.
Finally, some of the Concorde aircraft are on display in various museums around the world. On the aircraft’s last flight in 2003 from New York to Paris, the then president of Air France, Jean Cyril Spinetta stated: “Concorde will never stop because it will never leave people’s imaginations.”
Nothing more true, 41 years after his last flight leaving the country’s capital, many of us continue to remember that beautiful white “bird”, proof of the creative capacity of the human being.